I'm about to purchase an R.P.G but wanted to hear what others have experienced with the kit. I've done my research so I would greatly appreciate it if others didn't post in this thread telling me to get something else. I just want to know from R.P.G. owners how homebrew is, roms support, things like nesDS and the other emulators, moonshell, gba_exp loader, softreset, cheats, features, etc.

What problems, issues, and the like have you experienced.
Does the Opera browser work?
How is moonshell, dpg playback/mp3?
Is the new save type supported?
etc....

I would say the biggest feature of the RPG is being the only open source solution on the market. Now, this is a mixed blessing, as I think Lynx over at NDShb summed it up best in his prophetic review:

Quoted from QUOTE:

Open Source. I'm still not sure if this is a good thing or bad. Half of me says, "YEAH!" we can do whatever we want with the card.. As people have suggested, the USB port might make a great debug interface. The other half of me says "BOOH!" as this leaves them the ability to drop support of the device. If they release the initial firmware, and "Joe" comes along and releases a "better" firmware, everyone switches to Joe's firmware. Now, this makes Joe the maintainer of the firmware for this device. So, if something isn't working, you have to talk to Joe, as it's his firmware. Or, go back to the original firmware that might not have the features you like.

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And this is precisely where we find ourselves today, with individuals like the AIO team responsible for the real upkeep of the loader software while AK does very little other than update only if the occassional game fails to work. If you want features like cheat database, you're driven to these third party loaders. And yet they're unable to develop other features like save states because AK refuses to implement it in the first party loader.

So yes, the RPG supports the same cheats database provided you're using a third party solution.

Soft reset has the same compatibility as everywhere else: some games work, some do not. That's how it's always been because of the nature of having to patch the games, my EZFA for GBA was the same way. The only difference was that any GBA roms that wouldn't work simply wouldn't permit the option to become enabled, and with the RPG you'll have to try it to discover whether it whitescreens.

ROM and homebrew compatibility are ostensibly the same no matter which product you choose. The only product I can recall failing at the prior was the DS-X and those were special circumstances where it was managed by a bunch of crooks. The latter can be attributed to the development of DLDI.

Never tried Opera on it, but I don't know what to say if that's really a major factor for you. If you wanted a portable system that can browse the web you shouldn't have even bought a DS in the first place. My understanding is that yes it does, provided you have the patched copy+a slot two solution just like any other card.

And I'm not even sure how to respond to the mp3 + dpg inquiry. Isn't that what Moonshell does? Why would the experience be any different from one card to the next? That's like asking whether Mario Kart would play the same on the NDS classic as the Lite.

I keep hearing that the RPG has a limited save capacity, but have yet to see the effects myself. Daigasso or whatever it's called worked fine for me despite claims to the contrary.

Personally, after owning it for a couple months I'm still happy to have gone with the open source product. Yet I recognize that open source doesn't necessarily mean that something is better, and I can't help but wonder which features I'm missing out on if I had gone with a Cyclo. From my understanding, they actually implement things like slow motion and save states where Acekard seems like they don't want to do any work on behalf of all these customers.

i was curious about multimedia because i do alot of it on the go. just want to make sure moonshell has no issues on the rpg. i spoke to normmatt a few times who told me the rpg is limited to 1mb save files making it harder (but no impossible) to implement save states, a problem the ak2 does not have. knowing if it works with the new save size is just so know if the card will be with me for years to come. if it can't adapt i feel like i should just wait before buying a new kit. as for opera... i do check my g-mail when i'm on the go and don't have access to a computer. its important for my business and has saved me numerious headaches by having that ability.

And yet they're unable to develop other features like save states because AK refuses to implement it in the first party loader.

The Acekard team (according to the Acekard forum) plans to incorporate some of the custom firmware features into the official firmware.

So far (again, according to the Acekard forum) the development being done by the likes of Smiths, Normmatt, Gelu, and Bliss have allowed them to concentrate on the next version of the AK2 loader which will fix some of the problems the current version has with slower microSD cards (indeed the beta version does seem to fix the speed issues).

QUOTEI keep hearing that the RPG has a limited save capacity, but have yet to see the effects myself. Daigasso or whatever it's called worked fine for me despite claims to the contrary.

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The save files on the RPG (but not the AK2) are apparently limited in size. In Daigasso, you apparently cannot download new songs with the RPG.

Well as far as "plans to", I've been there, done that. I owned a DS-X, so I know all about 'planning' and what that amounts to so I'll believe it when I have empirical cause.

I'm loathe to argue Daigasso anything because I hate the game and couldn't care less, but my understanding was that the online service had a protection trigger which would prohibit anybody from downloading songs without an authentic game. Or was that more of the usual "oh no there's a problem so it must be a new copy protection because our piracy is under attack!" that happens with every issue?

On the RPG the save limit is 8Mbit (1MB), on the AK2 at the moment the max is 128Mbit, which can be expanded more if needed.

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I would like to know the technological reason behind this. Care to explain why the RPG is restricted to 1MB saves? I want to know about the hardware if you can explain. I would much appreciate it Normmatt.

On the RPG the save limit is 8Mbit (1MB), on the AK2 at the moment the max is 128Mbit, which can be expanded more if needed.

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I would like to know the technological reason behind this. Care to explain why the RPG is restricted to 1MB saves? I want to know about the hardware if you can explain. I would much appreciate it Normmatt.

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The AKRPG uses an on board eeprom for storing saves, sadly the size of this eeprom is only 1MB which means thats the max save size the AKRPG can handle.

The AK2 doesnt use an eeprom and instead directly patches the rom to save directly to a save file on your microsd, so saves can be any size as long as you have enough free space on your microsd.

This is from "Acekard" at the Acekard forum(June 30):
"We're checking the issue on AK RPG and ak2 now. I hope we can have some positive result. And bliss has a misunderstanding of 8m save of akrpg. It can work on rpg but we need to check it first."

that was a month and a half ago, so maybe it's BS. It'd be a lot kewler if it really could be implemented...

I really dunno how many other games (besides BandBros) use or will use the 8m save, though.

On the RPG the save limit is 8Mbit (1MB), on the AK2 at the moment the max is 128Mbit, which can be expanded more if needed.

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I would like to know the technological reason behind this. Care to explain why the RPG is restricted to 1MB saves? I want to know about the hardware if you can explain. I would much appreciate it Normmatt.

Click to expand...

The AKRPG uses an on board eeprom for storing saves, sadly the size of this eeprom is only 1MB which means thats the max save size the AKRPG can handle.

The AK2 doesnt use an eeprom and instead directly patches the rom to save directly to a save file on your microsd, so saves can be any size as long as you have enough free space on your microsd.

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Since the AK2 patches the game to save directly is it more prone to have problem games in the future since it patches the game to save to the save file on the micro SD while the RPG doesn't patch it to save?

This is from "Acekard" at the Acekard forum(June 30):
"We're checking the issue on AK RPG and ak2 now. I hope we can have some positive result. And bliss has a misunderstanding of 8m save of akrpg. It can work on rpg but we need to check it first."
that was a month and a half ago, so maybe it's BS. It'd be a lot kewler if it really could be implemented...
I agree.

QUOTE(VatoLoco @ Aug 12 2008, 01:32 AM) I really dunno how many other games (besides BandBros) use or will use the 8m save, though.

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Until now, 2385 Daigassou! Band Brothers DX is the only game to use a save bigger than 4mbit (512KB).

This is from "Acekard" at the Acekard forum(June 30):
"We're checking the issue on AK RPG and ak2 now. I hope we can have some positive result. And bliss has a misunderstanding of 8m save of akrpg. It can work on rpg but we need to check it first."
that was a month and a half ago, so maybe it's BS. It'd be a lot kewler if it really could be implemented...
I agree.

QUOTE(VatoLoco @ Aug 12 2008, 01:32 AM) I really dunno how many other games (besides BandBros) use or will use the 8m save, though.

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Until now, 2385 Daigassou! Band Brothers DX is the only game to use a save bigger than 4mbit (512KB).

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Has anyone really investigated the issue of why such a big save file is necessary and perhaps they could develop a patch with the information they gained to convert the save file down to a smaller size or at least contact the AK team with their findings.